Corps of Engineers says there is federal interest in reversing damage caused by Noyes Cut in Camden County

Shortcut between Satilla River and Dover Creek has caused siltation, hurt navigation and habitat

BRUNSWICK | The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stated this week there is a federal interest in restoring habitat and navigation in a section of the Satilla River in Camden County damaged by 82-year-old Noyes Cut, the Satilla Riverkeeper said.

The cut has so disrupted the flow of Dover Creek that it has caused the creek and connecting Umbrella Creek to silt in, leaving both virtually unnavigable at low tide and cutting into the fish population, according to residents and environmentalists.

“We’re still in the study phase, but we’re headed in the right direction,’’ Voigt said.

Among the studies is whether any of the possible remedies will correct the problems the cut has caused, he said.

Voigt can look out his front door and see what the cut has done.

“We’ve got places along Dover Bluff where we’ve got marsh 100 feet wide where we had nothing but river,’’ he said.

A hydraulic simulation model would help engineers decide if closing the cut would achieve the corps’ goals and help identify the best design. But before the corps starts that process, it would have to enter a cost-sharing agreement with a local non-federal sponsor, said Clay Montague, a member of the Satilla Riverkeeper board.

There has been full funding in the past, but it was lost.

In 1963 and 1983, the corps determined that Noyes Cut was responsible for sedimentation that caused the navigation problems in Dover Creek and Umbrella Creek. Congress allocated money to fill the cut in 1986, but the funding was redirected during a budget crisis in 1992 and the project was eventually de-authorized, Montague said.

The project regained the corps’ attention after the Georgia Water Coalition identified Noyes Cut in its 2012 Dirty Dozen Report of water issues in the state. In 2013, the General Assembly adopted a joint resolution that requested that the corps close Noyes Cut to benefit navigation and habitat.

The Water Resources Development Act of 1986 says that a de-authorized project can be brought back to life if a local sponsor requests it and if a federal interest is identified, Montague said.

With the stated federal interest, the next step is to find a sponsor and Montague said he doesn’t think it will be that difficult given the interest of legislators, the Voigt family and other residents.

The local sponsor would have to pay 25 percent of the cost with the federal government picking up the rest, but such projects are capped at $5 million, Montague said.

Montague said there are a number of possibilities for reversing the damage.

“One that I like is restoring salt marsh or a tidal marsh where the cut is now. That would be ideal,’’ he said.

Another option may be to build a wall somewhere in the cut to stop the back-and-forth movement of the tide, which would allow sediments to fill the cut over time, he said.

“This kind of closure is fairly cheap to do,’’ he said.

It would have been far cheaper to have closed Noyes Cut had it remained the way it was when Dover Bluff residents began complaining back in the mid 1930s.

When it was first dredged, the cut was only about 50 feet wide, but the flow of the tides has widened it over time.